Somalia: Not Only a Somali Tragedy

Editor's Note

"I think it's really quite tragic that a strategy run from Washington, D.C., and from
the European headquarters in Brussels pays so little attention when over 300 people
are killed, massacred, and another 500 people are struggling for their lives, and
that very little support comes from the United States and the European Union to help
the Somali government clean up this, help the people who have been injured or people
who have lost their parents or their children." - Dr. Abdi Samatar

The disproportion in global attention, even in other African countries, paid to the
truck bombing in Mogadishu, as compared to other horrific terrorist actions carried
out in Europe or the United States, is shocking but not surprising, since it is part
of a familiar scenario. But it is particularly egregious given the high level of
responsibility of outsiders in crafting the failed counter-terrorist strategies in
Somalia over decades. That responsibility iw widely shared, including not only powers
and international organizations outside Africa, but also the African Union and
Somalia's immediate neighbors.

This AfricaFocus features excerpts from a Democracy Now program on October 17,
including the interview quoted above, as well as links to other relevant articles
highlighting both insights into the massacre itself as well as the counterproductive
effects of failed counter-terrorism strategies.

The Mogadishu Massacre: Selected Articles Worth Noting

Jason Burke, "Thousands march in Somalia after attack that killed more than 300," The
Guardian, October 18, 2017 http://tinyurl.com/yd4y8mvw

"Thousands of Somalis have demonstrated against those behind the bombing that killed
more than 300 people at the weekend, defying police who opened fire to keep them away
from the site of the attack. Wearing red headbands, the crowd of mostly young men and
women marched through Mogadishu amid tight security. They answered a call to unity by
the mayor, Thabit Abdi, who said: 'We must liberate this city, which is awash with
graves.'The attack in the heart of Mogadishu on Saturday has been blamed on alShabaab,
the local violent Islamist group, and was one of the most lethal terrorist
operations anywhere in the world in recent years."

Dr.Maryam Abdullah, among more than 300 killed in the
Mogadishu truck bombing, was due to graduate that same day
as a medical doctor after 6 yrs studying medicine.

Ibrahim Hirsi, "How Minnesota's Somali community is mobilizing to help Mogadishu
bombing victims," Minnpost, October 18, 2017 http://tinyurl.com/ycqnvsda
"Minneapolis resident Ahmed Hirsi was only a few miles away from the powerful blast
that killed hundreds of people in Mogadishu last Saturday. When he arrived on the
scene, where a truck filled with explosives was detonated, Hirsi saw pavement covered
in blood; bodies decapitated and shattered, burned beyond recognition. As the
deadliest single attack in Somalia’s history, the explosions killed more than 300
people, including a Bloomington man — a death toll that’s expected to rise as crews
continue to dig into the rubble for signs of life. Just hours before that fateful
afternoon, Hirsi had posted smiling photos of himself on Facebook, urging young
Somalis in the U.S., Europe and Canada to return to the East African country and get
involved in efforts to rebuild it. On Monday, however, Hirsi returned to Minneapolis, still reeling from the shock of
the bloody attacks that rocked Mogadishu, where he spent 10 days with a group invited
by the Somali government to review parts of the country’s new constitution.

Alexis Okeowo, "Where is the Empathy for Somalia," New Yorker, October 17, 2017
http://tinyurl.com/y9qqf2o9
"And so it was with a familiar disappointment that Somalis, within the country and
among the diaspora, along with other concerned observers, watched as details of the
attack failed to headline broadcast news or resonate globally on social media. There
was no impromptu hashtag of solidarity, no deluge of television coverage. It was as
if the bombing were just another incident in the daily life of Somalis—a burst of
violence that would fade into all the other bursts of violence. The lack of public
empathy was startling but not surprising."

Jason Burke, "Mogadishu bombing: parents' grief for medical student killed in blast,"
The Guardian, October 16, 2017 http://tinyurl.com/y7sbvlfu
"On Saturday morning, Maryam Abdullahi Gedi made breakfast for her family, packed her
books and laptop and set out across Mogadishu, the battered capital of Somalia, to
see her supervisor at Banadir University about her thesis. She was excited about the
prospect of her graduation as a medical doctor this week. Her father – who flew in
from the UK to attend the ceremony – found himself at her funeral instead. Gedi, 24,
was among more than 300 people killed in a massive bombing in the centre of the city
on Saturday afternoon."

Amanda Sperber, "Shock and revulsion over Mogadishu bombing," IRIN, October 16, 2017
http://tinyurl.com/y7yojlng
"The bomb was as enormous as the flecks of torn skin smudging the ground are
miniscule. Entire overcrowded buses were blown up, every passenger killed. No one in
the vicinity was spared: shopkeepers at the side of the road selling khat; office
managers; children fooling around or running errands for parents; a medical student
about to graduate; mothers; fathers; sisters; brothers. At approximately 3:30 on
Saturday afternoon, a truck bomb was detonated in the middle of the traffic in
Mogadishu's Hodan district, next to the landmark Safari hotel, frequented by
politicians and other Somali movers and shakers."

Tula Connell, "75+ Union Members Among Those Killed in Somalia," Solidarity Center, October 17, 2017
"More than 75 union members are among the dead. Among them, at least 50 transport
union members and more than 25 hotel workers. Condemning the attack, Mohamed Osman
Haji, chairman of the Somali Congress of Trade Unions (SOCOTU), pledged SOCOTU’s
support to the injured people and called on the workers and the people of Somalia to
remain calm and exercise restraint."

Selected Related Sources on Violent Extremism

"Undermanned, underfunded, underwhelming: African police forces struggle to contain
regular crime, and they are even further out of their depth when it comes to tackling
violent extremism. The best way to identify threats to public safety is a policing
model that promotes trust and collaboration with the community, say the policy
manuals on preventing violent extremism, better known as PVE. A positive relationship
is believed to help build resilience to radicalisation. But the reality in much of
the world is that the police are viewed as corrupt, violent, and people best
avoided."

"The research specifically set out to discover what pushed a handful of individuals
to join violent extremist groups, when many others facing similar sets of
circumstances did not. This specific moment or factor is referred to as the 'tipping
point'. The idea of a transformative trigger that pushes individuals decisively from
the 'at-risk' category to actually taking the step of joining is substantiated by the
Journey to Extremism data. A striking 71 percent pointed to 'government action',
including 'killing of a family member or friend' or 'arrest of a family member or
friend', as the incident that prompted them to join. These findings throw into stark
relief the question of how counter-terrorism and wider security functions of
governments in at-risk environments conduct themselves with regard to human rights
and due process. State security-actor conduct is revealed as a prominent accelerator
of recruitment, rather than the reverse."

From publisher's description: "Okeowo weaves together four narratives that form a
powerful tapestry of modern Africa: a young couple, kidnap victims of Joseph Kony's
LRA; a Mauritanian waging a lonely campaign against modern-day slavery; a women's
basketball team flourishing amid war-torn Somalia; and a vigilante who takes up arms
against the extremist group Boko Haram."

The Mogadishu Massacre in Somalia

[Excerpts from transcript are below. Note that video and audio of the broadcast are
also available at the link above.]

Rescue operations continue in Mogadishu, Somalia, after two massive truck bombs
exploded Saturday, killing at least 300 in the country's deadliest attack since the
rise of the al-Shabab militant group a decade ago. The disaster is being referred to
as the "Mogadishu massacre," and some are calling it "the 9/11 of the Somali people."
The explosions came after the Trump administration stepped up a U.S. campaign against
al-Shabab in Somalia. We speak with Somali scholar Abdi Samatar and journalist Amanda
Sperber, who splits her time between Nairobi, Kenya, and Mogadishu, Somalia.

...

For more, we're joined by Democracy Now! video stream by the Somali scholar and
writer Abdi Samatar. He's a professor of the Department of Geography, Environment &
Society at the University of Minnesota, the author of Africa's First Democrats:
Somalia's Aden A. Osman and Abdirazak H. Hussen. And joining us from Nairobi, Amanda
Sperber, freelance journalist who splits her time between Nairobi, Kenya, and
Mogadishu, Somalia. Her new article for IRIN News is headlined "Shock and revulsion
over Mogadishu bombing."

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Amanda, let's begin with you in Nairobi, Kenya.
Can you explain what you understand took place, the horrific attack that killed more
than 300 people and injured roughly that same number?

AMANDA SPERBER: Yeah. I mean, it's pretty much what you said. The attacks were
horrific. The outcome has been devastating. To me, what I think I've seen that's been
the most upsetting aftereffect is the—is really the lack of capacity that the country
has to deal with this. People are still being pulled from the rubble. The hospitals
are running out of blood. The hospitals don't have enough supplies. So, I think, to
me, what's really devastating about this is—beyond what happened, it's what happens
next. And, I mean, I talked to one of the ministers who says there aren't enough
sheets, there aren't enough water—there isn't enough water, there isn't enough
antibiotics. So I think that's where the real focus needs to be now.

...

AMY GOODMAN: Abdi Samatar, you're a Somali scholar and writer. Can you talk about
your thoughts on what has taken place, how unusual this is, if you feel it has
anything to do with the increased U.S. military push in Africa?

ABDI SAMATAR: This is more than a massacre. It's carnage. I have absolutely no doubt
that this is the work of al-Shabab. The truck came on the road that comes from the
west part of the city into the heart of the capital, and that area of the country and
that area west of Mogadishu is completely controlled by al-Shabab. There's nobody
else. There's no ISIS. There's nobody else there. And so, speculations aside, this is
a fact, if you look at the geography of the route that the truck took. So that's the
first thing to note.

The second thing to note is that, yes, this is carnage, but Somalis have been
bleeding slowly to death in what professor Michael Watts calls "silent violence" over
the last two-and-a-half decades or so. So, yeah, the concentration of the death in a
small period of time in one place is horrific, but death of this kind has been taking
place among the population by terrorists and by African Union forces over the last
decade or so. So we should not be really surprised at this, but we should take stock
of the sober nature of the calamity that's Somalia.

And then the final thing I would like to say is this, that the United States
government and the European Union, who support AMISOM, the African Union force in
Somalia, populated by Ugandans, Ethiopians, Kenyans, Djiboutians and whatnot, they
spend a billion-and-a-half dollars a year on that force. And that force is a
conventional military force that's placed, holed in, in locations outside and inside
Mogadishu. If they were to spend a quarter of that sum of money on developing a
Somali security force that's mobile, that it can engage in guerrilla tactics and go
after al-Shabab, this kind of a carnage would have been easily sort of avoided, and
the people would have been saved. I don't think the international community is
serious about this. I don't think they are interested in helping the Somali people. I
think they are more interested in containing the Somali problem, as they call it, in
Somalia, rather than claiming that they are nurturing the development of peace and
democracy in that country.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Abdi Samatar, I wanted to ask you about that African Union
force. And specifically, what are the interests of—because they're basically
functioning as a proxy force for the United States and the European Union, that's
bankrolling them. What are the interests of specifically Ethiopia and Kenya in the
ongoing military operations in Somalia?

ABDI SAMATAR: Well, let's start with Kenya. Kenya invaded southern Somalia in 2011.
The claim was that al-Shabab was damaging its economy because of a number of hostage
takings along the Indian Ocean coast, the high tourist area of Kenya. Actually, the
United States' sort of reports from both the embassy and the Secret Service—I mean,
the CIA, demonstrated that Kenya had this lust to occupy parts of Somalia long before
those two incidents took place in 2010 and 2011. So, both Kenya and Ethiopia are
interested to making sure Somalia never really comes back as a country and as a state
that can challenge them in any way or sense.

So, there's a—you have a problem here. Why would the African Union allow two
countries who are neighbors, who have conflict of interest, to engage in Somalia? For
instance, the Ethiopians control much of the southwest part of the country, and the
Somali forces cannot really go there. They are dominated by the Ethiopians. And the
Ethiopians and the Kenyans are nurturing what I consider to be tribal fiefdoms, much
like apartheid and sort of bantustans, such that the central government never gains
full authority across the country so that peace and order can be restored.

So, the United States is an ally of the Ethiopians. That's where we use our drones to
bomb places in the region. The Kenyans are close allies of the United Kingdom and the
European Union. So, the question is really—Somalia is not the issue for them to save.
It's about sort of making sure Kenya and Ethiopia are doing what they do in the
region in order to support the United States and the European Union.

...

AMY GOODMAN: Amanda, can you talk about the response in Somalia when President Trump
announced that he was activating forces there? Explain what those forces were.

AMANDA SPERBER: Well, I think President Trump first made an announcement that he was
activating offensive drone strikes. I believe that was back in March. And response
then was kind of a mixture of skepticism, because, obviously, America is not known
for successful drone strikes necessarily, but at the same time, Somalis really revile
al-Shabab. There's a sense that they want to move forward. So I think that there was
also really a sense of hope and, genuinely, appreciation that they want—you know,
like they don't want al-Shabab to be the influential force that it is, so I think
that they were—there was also a level of—a level of hope that this could turn things
around. But all in all, I mean, that was mixed with a healthy sense of skepticism,
given America's reputation in this part of the world.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Amanda, you've written that you were surprised in your visits to
Somalia about the extent of the U.S. presence there. Could you talk about that?

AMANDA SPERBER: Sure. I mean, I think when I went to Somalia, my understanding was
not that the U.S. was leading—was not that the U.S. was leading the way in the
country. My sense was that Turkey, the Gulf states and the United Kingdom were sort
of taking the way. But upon getting on the ground, it was pretty clear to me, and
made clear both by just the expats that I spoke to as well as the locals, that
America is kind of at the forefront of operations and is invested strategically in
Somalia's security, both in terms of financial and—both in terms for financial
reasons and security reasons.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask Professor Abdi Samatar about this question, in April,
President Trump signing the directive classifying parts of Somalia as areas of active
hostilities, meaning the Pentagon now has more power to carry out airstrikes and
ground raids in the region, the classification also meaning the Pentagon will have
more permission to kill bystanders.

ABDI SAMATAR: Well, I mean, the president did sign that, and that's what it has
meant. But as Amy suggested, we are not known, as Americans, particularly, I mean,
our forces, to do the kind of surgical targets that can take terrorists out. I think
if President Trump and his team were interested in reducing the level of tyranny and
the, if you like, terrorism in the country, what they would have done is use the
Somali security forces and spend maybe a couple of hundred million dollars on that
rather than a billion dollars on the operations, and develop a mobile force that will
act as a sort of a counter-guerrilla tactics—use counter-guerrilla tactics to go
after al-Shabab, without involving Americans and anybody else, and, in that process,
help Somalis rebuild the social and the sort of political infrastructure of their
country. What you have, what Trump and his team are doing is doing their dirty work,
as another scholar wrote in a book a few years back, and, in the process, not
actually helping the Somali people take care of al-Shabab. I think Amanda is correct
that Somalis revile al-Shabab, and I think they are capable of taking care of alShabab
if they get the kind of resources they need to be able to go after them. So
that's one issue about that matter.

The other issue that needs to be brought to the table is that the Somali political
class, not so much as the current government cabinet, but the Somali political class,
is a rump, corrupt bunch of people who are less interested in their country and in
their own people, and who are more interested in corruption and looting whatever
little resources the country has, and is remaining in power. If that political class
was on the same page as the Somali people in getting rid of Shabab, I am pretty
certain the Somali people can raise enough resources to mobilize sufficient number of
security forces that can drive al-Shabab into the sea. Unfortunately, you have two
forces: the international community, who is not interested in helping Somalis save
themselves, and you have a local political class, who are almost on the same page.
And in between those two, the folks who are caught are ordinary people who have paid
the ultimate price in this latest carnage in Mogadishu.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Professor Samatar, the goal of al-Shabab, if you could talk about
that? What is the long-term political goal of al-Shabab? And also, the spread of the
U.S. war on terrorism across sub-Saharan Africa—we had the report recently of four
U.S. servicemen killed in Niger—could you talk about that, as well?

ABDI SAMATAR: I think the loss of American lives in the form that took place in Niger
is quite tragic and not necessary. I think if we—as a government and as a country, if
we were serious—that's Americans—if we were serious in developing a mutually
beneficial strategy, mutually beneficial for Americans, mutually beneficial for
Africans, whether they are Somalis or Nigerians or whatnot, we will do a very
different strategy in which local people are mobilized to defend themselves, and we
will provide the resources necessary. So, my thinking is that sort of AFRICOM is
doing the wrong tactics, much like AMISOM in Somalia is using conventional military
resources and strategy to fight al-Shabab. So, it's the wrong strategy, in my
opinion. And the American government—not the American people, but the American
government—is more interested in this, rather than in helping the local populations
at a lower cost to all of us. So that's the first thing.

If we come back to al-Shabab, al-Shabab controls much of the rural areas of southern
Somalia, while AMISOM is holed in, in particular locations. And so, when AMISOM, for
instance, moves into a town, takes over that town, Shabab just simply melt away into
the bush, if you like, into the tropical bush in Somalia. The minute AMISOM
withdraws, Shabab comes safely back and controls that territory. What you need here
is a 10,000 to 20,000 Somali security forces, military and police forces, that are
trained in guerrilla tactics, that are highly mobile. And the cost of that will be
literally a fraction of the amount of money the European Union and the American
government is spending on AMISOM, $1.5 billion. We can spend less than $200 million
and get the job done and help the Somalis put Humpty Dumpty back together in a way
that's beneficial to them. But that doesn't seem to be in the gray matter of those
who are running the "war on terror" in Washington, D.C.

...

AMY GOODMAN: A final comment, Professor Samatar, on Niger and Somalia and the
connection we should see? In the U.S. media, far more attention is being paid to, of
course, the four U.S. Special Forces soldiers dead than the more than 300 people dead
in Somalia.

ABDI SAMATAR: I think it's really quite tragic that a strategy run from Washington,
D.C., and from the European headquarters in Brussels pays so little attention when
over 300 people are killed, massacred, and another 500 people are struggling for
their lives, and that very little support comes from the United States and the
European Union to help the Somali government clean up this, help the people who have
been injured or people who have lost their parents or their children. By contrast,
the Turkish government, literally immediately, as the explosions took place, sent a
military plane with doctors and whatnot. Even the small country of Djibouti did
something like that. So, the contrast between the bravado about fighting terrorism
and supporting the local people who have become the victims of such terror is quite
telling about what our agenda and strategy is in that part of the world.

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